While existing network testing technologies may be suitable for testing certain networks, they are often inadequate for testing diverse networks that employ different platforms and/or communication protocols and data formats. For example, off-the-shelf network testing products are typically designed for testing only certain types of network platforms, but lack the tools for testing other network platforms.
Existing network testing technologies usually have other shortcomings as well. For example, some network testing technologies require significant manual input from a user. By way of another example, certain network testing technologies have unfamiliar user interfaces that require users to learn new skill sets when such network testing technologies are adopted. Moreover, many existing network testing technologies are vendor specific, and full integration of vendor specific network testing products is not trivial. Accordingly, with present network testing technologies it is often difficult to facilitate the creation, storage, and retrieval of test steps and test cases, as well as equipment configuration information, across diverse testing tools. It is further often difficult to prevent users from using a first tool to alter and possibly corrupt data created by a second tool when such data is stored in more accessible to the first tool.